Jose Quinones Biography

José Quiñones

(José Abelardo Quiñones Gonzáles o González; Pimentel, 1914-Quebrada Seca, 1941) Hero of Peruvian aviation.Born on April 22, 1914 in the port of Pimentel, today a district of the province of Chiclayo, department of Lambayeque, José Quiñones was the son of José María Quiñones Arizola and Juana Rosa González Orrego.He graduated from the Jorge Chávez Central Aviation School with the Commander Raguz promotion and received by Supreme Resolution No.2, on January 9, 1939, his office as Second Lieutenant of Aeronautics.On the date of his graduation, during the aerial demonstration of his promotion, he astonished the audience by performing an inverted flight one meter from the ground, thus demonstrating his prodigious skills, bordering on the impossible.

José Quiñones

In 1941, the Ecuadorian aggression took place on the northern border.The first light division, in its order of July 2, set the mission of recovering the border in a maneuver supported by the action of the aviation on the Ecuadorian port of Quebrada Seca.Thus, at 07:50 a.m.on July 23, as stated in the mission reports and in the written testimonies of eyewitnesses, Squadron 41 took off to fulfill its mission.

This squadron was commanded by Lieutenant Antonio Alberti, accompanied by Lieutenants Fernando Paraud and José Quiñones and Ensign Manuel Rivera.At 08:00 hours they found themselves on the target and began the passage to carry out the bombardment of Quebrada Seca.At that precise moment and when Lieutenant Quiñones was making a descent to drop his bombs, his plane was hit by the fire of enemy antiaircraft pieces, being affected in its vital parts.

Engulfed in flames his plane, Lieutenant Quiñones, far from using his parachute, in the use of which he was an expert, with full awareness of his actions, kept the balance of the machine and described a tight turn with it towards the enemy battery, against which it crashed destroying it completely.Thus he fulfilled the mission entrusted heroically, with detachment, courage, self-denial and the sacrifice of his own life, which he had sworn to consecrate to the homeland when he received his sword as an officer of the Peruvian Air Force.The Ecuadorian Air Force itself recognized the heroism of Quiñones and the government of Peru granted him posthumous promotion to the rank of captain of Aeronautics for death in action of arms.

By law no.16126, of May 10, 1966, the Congress of the Republic declared him a national hero, at the same time that it ordered that on July 23 of each year, the anniversary of his sublime sacrifice, be declared the day of the Military Aviation of Peru and that commemorative commemorative ceremonies be carried out on that date in all the air bases of the Republic.In this way, the country exalts the merits of one of its most beloved sons, whose example constitutes a lesson in patriotism for present and future generations of Peruvians.